


All the hurt geography I own

by Signe (oxoniensis)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1000-3000 words, F/M, First Time, Older Woman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:36:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxoniensis/pseuds/Signe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanting's for fools, but thinking, no one can help thinking sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the hurt geography I own

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Вся раненая география, которой я владею](https://archiveofourown.org/works/978184) by [Rassda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rassda/pseuds/Rassda)



> Beta thanks to flipmontigirl and Anna Lazarus. Title from 'Geography Lesson' by Carol Rumens. Spoilers up to 2.08 - Crossroad Blues. First published December 2006.

Men walk into her bar every day. Young men, old-looking young men, grizzled, surly, hunters, travelers, lost folk and a few she can't place. She serves them; come closing time, she kicks them out. No one stays, 'cept Ash sometimes, and he don't count, not really. She remembers their names when she's serving them, forgets them soon as they're out of sight. It's the way she likes it. Now. One time, it was different, but there's no call to go remembering the past.

Sam's been gone weeks now, and she still sees him sprawling at a table, making his beer glass look too small. She stretches her own hands around a full glass and pictures his covering them, big and warm. Easy.

Sammy, John used to call him when he was telling her and Bill proud tales. Dean calls him that too, sometimes. He introduced himself as Sam though, Sam Winchester, ma'am, and she knows better than to call him anything else. Family names aren't up for grabs, not by just anyone, and she doesn't flatter herself that she counts enough, no matter how often it's his voice at the end of the phone when it rings after closing hours or too early in the morning. But she wants to call him Sammy, wants the intimacy of soft syllables that strangers don't use, and she chides herself for the wanting. No use wanting stuff you can't have, that's a lesson she's gotten down pat for years.

She lets herself think of him though, even when she doesn't let herself want. Wanting's for fools, but thinking, no one can help thinking sometimes.

*

He phones, breakfast time. A question, like it always is. Like he needs a reason, an excuse. Like it's business, not personal.

"Is there a hunters' newsletter?" he asks, no hello first, nothing else, just a question that makes her laugh out loud, spurting coffee through her nose like she's not done since—since forever.

"No, hon," she answers, laughter cracking her voice. "What makes you ask?"

"Oh, nothing," he says, and she can see him shaking his head like he's in the room with her, not states away, some place she's never been. He's a better liar than his brother, she thinks, but he's not fooling her. It's something.

He doesn't hang up straight away, so she asks him how's he doing, how's Dean, how's hunting, and he gives her platitudes, everything's okay. She thinks he wants to say more though. Maybe he will, one day.

*

She knows it's them when the door creaks open and shut, even before she turns around. No mysterious trick, just an ear for car engines and a mirror behind the bar. Sam and Dean, walking back in, a bit self-conscious, a little wary, like they're not sure if she's going to welcome them or tear a strip off them again. Hell, she's not sure herself, so why should they be?

"Boys," she says. "What can I get you?" she says, and she doesn't make any effort to make her voice anything other than neutral – let them read what they want into it.

Dean takes his beer, nods his thanks, and finds Jo. They sit close together, Jo talking, and Ellen turns her back. Deliberate. Gives all her attention to Sam, wonders what they're doing here, if they're just passing through. She's torn as to which she hopes it is.

"We're not stopping," Sam says, "not long," and for a second she wonders if he's reading her mind, if he can do that. But she guesses it doesn't take psychic powers to read her right now, especially when it comes to Jo – Jo and Dean - so she smiles at him, genuine. Welcomes him with her look, leans against the bar and lifts her own bottle to his and that's when his return smile hits her full force.

He didn't smile much first time she saw them. Neither of them had. Hunters don't smile often; not that much to smile about when you're facing demons and monsters most every day, when you've met evil face to face and barely survived, when others didn't survive. She thinks maybe he has even less to smile about now, if the hunch in Dean's shoulders when she spared a quick glance that way was anything to go by. There are cracks in the Winchesters, however tough a front they put on.

But Sam's smiling at her now, and no matter how good a liar the boy is, his smile's no lie.

That's when she knows. She's a fool. She knows when she's breaking her own rules, and she knows she wants this boy, wants that smile that dips sharp-fast inside her and makes her ache in places she'd almost forgotten existed.

*

He follows her out back without her inviting him. 'Cept she did invite him, her eyes did, her hands and body and the racing of her heart did. Even her voice betrayed her, foolish woman that she is.

He leans against the wall, biting his lower lip like he's nervous, hands thrust in his jeans' pockets like he's bashful.

He's neither. He's just waiting. Waiting for her. To say yes, or change her mind. He'll let her do either, it's there in his eyes, the way in and the way out, and she wonders at the gentleness in someone so strong.

She crowds him, in close, and his hands come up around her waist, the cast on his left hand an odd pressure in the small of her back, clumsy. It's the only thing about him that's clumsy though. He pulls her weight against him, moves in slowly to kiss her as though he doesn't want to spook her. Watches her as he leans down, right until the point she can't focus properly anymore and she sees his eyes flicker shut, eyelashes a smudge on his cheeks. Kisses slow, leisurely, as though they have all the time in the world to try this, for him to find out what makes her tremble (his hand cupping her jaw, thumb brushing the curve under-behind her ear), what makes her push up harder against him (when he bites her lip, rough and eager and not gentle any more).

"I'm a little rusty at this," he tells her, voice muffled in her hair.

She almost laughs, because no way is he as rusty as she is. Feels. Her cunt's not been wet for a man in years, just for memories, and they don't satisfy. She can feel him, hard, 'gainst her belly, and they don't have all the time in the world, they don't have time at all. It's here and now and this, fast.

She scrabbles at his belt while he distracts her. Watches her again.

"Don't," she says.

"Don't what?"

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

She pauses, eyes fixed on the button she's undoing. "Like I'm beautiful," she says, and works his zip down.

He takes her face in his hands again, lifts her head up. "You are," he insists. "You are."

An awkward moment then. Silence, except for the rub of denim against skin, the susurration of jeans falling to the ground, the crinkle of foil. She feels giddy like a teenager getting her first fuck and old at the same time, and either way she doesn't know how to ask where this is going. She knows what she wants - that's easy. She wants him inside her, she wants him to eat her out, she wants to go down on him; she wants it all, but there isn't that option, not in the time they have before someone comes out searching for them.

"Can I—?" he starts and she just nods.

He blankets a crate with his jacket, and she sits on it in her faded-white cotton panties while he slips his long fingers inside them, slips into the silky wetness between her legs, pulls them off and leans between the vee of her legs. He's gorgeous, all long lean muscle, and she closes her eyes, too many sensations.

His hand cradling her ass is steady as he slides in and out of her. There's a splinter in her hand, old wood; she'll have to pull it out later, but she doesn't feel the pain, not now, just the vague awareness of its presence. All she can feel is Sam, the tickle of his pubes against her thighs, the not-quite stubble against her neck, the foreign feel of his cast against her flank, his knowing fingers. Hot everywhere they touch skin. He's filling her with heat and she wraps a leg around him and pulls him in deeper, as if she can keep him there forever. He's breathing heavy, and when she opens her eyes she's not sure if he's in agony or ecstasy.

"Ellen," he grunts and his voice is an octave lower than normal. He sounds like his father and, God help her, she comes at the sound, wet and needy and silent, head thrown back while her body trembles in his hands.

He stills until she digs her heel in his back, rubs her breasts against him and wishes there'd been time to get naked so she could feel his chest bare against hers, but then he's fucking her, hard and desperate and almost angry, like he's looking for something he's lost and he knows he won't find it here but he still has to look anyway. And she would cry for him, mourn for all he's lost, but it's his pain, and she doesn't have a place in it, not really, just a brief role in the here and now.

He comes in the end, sinking one last time heavy against her, and she holds him tight while he breaks up.

He kisses her after they've pulled their clothes back on, so gently and tenderly that it almost doesn't matter that there's no need left in it any more.

"Next time," he says, "next time I want to see you."

"My breasts sag," she tells him. Next time. She processes slowly.

"I want to see your saggy breasts," he says.

She doesn't believe there'll be a next time, and her breasts don't really sag that much, but neither matter. She thinks he's left something of himself behind, inside her, hers to keep no matter what. Nothing tangible, but there's a part of Sam Winchester that's hers now, a little hurt part she'll keep no matter where he is.

*

"Sammy," she says next time the caller id identifies his phone, not thinking, and she wishes she could take it back the second the name comes out of her mouth.

"Ellen," Sam replies, and she can hear the smile in his voice, and she knows it's alright. But she won't call him that again.


End file.
